IOM launches €18mn project to support returnee reintegration in Afghanistan

IOM has launched a four-year, €18 million project with funding from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) to support returnees and host communities across Afghanistan.

The project will help foster sustainable reintegration by promoting economic development in communities of high return, building the capacity of government bodies working on migration and providing post-arrival assistance for returnees. Communities in Kabul, Herat, Nangarhar, Balkh, Kandahar, Baghlan, Uruzgan and Laghman will be targeted.

“Our joint collaboration under this project marks a critical and much needed step towards providing longer-term, sustainable, income-generating solutions and livelihoods for returnees” said Laurence Hart, IOM’s Chief of Mission and Special Envoy in Afghanistan, speaking at today’s signing event in Kabul.

Under the project, and working with a network of partners, IOM will complete a series of community development initiatives in areas of high return. The initiatives will include small-scale infrastructure and income-generating projects in a number of different sectors such as agricultural rehabilitation, irrigation and canal cleaning, rural development, handicrafts, and providing equipment and supplies for public institutions and commercial spaces such as markets.

These activities will be carried out in close cooperation with the community, through the existing Community Development Councils.

IOM will also support 1,000 technical and vocational education and training initiatives and skills development activities in the target project sites, and provide financial assistance to approximately 40 existing micro/small businesses.

“Support for improving migration management in general, including in the area of return and reintegration, is included as an objective under EU development cooperation and the special measure that we implement in Afghanistan is a rapid reaction to an unprecedented challenge” says Ms Raffaella Iodice, Head of Unit in charge of Migration in DG DEVCO, European Commission.

In addition to increasing the sustainability of return and reintegration through community and economic development, the project will offer vital information to returnees and potential labor migrants through the establishment of Returnee Information Centers (RICs) in key locations.

The RICs will serve as a “one stop shop” offering counseling and information on assistance for returnees as well as safe migration. Over the course of the project, IOM will work to build the capacity of the Afghan Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation to the run RICs and transition them to government-run facilities.

“Not only will this project have a positive impact on tens of thousands of Afghan returnees and high return communities, it will also serve as a valuable learning platform for creating successful return, reintegration and development interventions in the future,” said Mr. Hart.